Why a Coach Beats an App
An app costs about a tenth of what coaching costs and it will give you a programme that's better written than most of what people do on their own. I'd rather someone trained off an app than wandered around a gym for a year. But be clear about what it can and can't do.
An app costs about a tenth of what coaching costs and it will give you a programme that's better written than most of what people do on their own. I'd rather someone trained off an app than wandered around a gym for a year. But be clear about what it can and can't do.
An app cannot see your reps.
And it matters more than the quality of the programme. Strength work is a skill under load, and skills aren't built by reading a description of a squat, but by someone saying "chest up, drive the knees out" at the moment your knees drift. Do thirty reps with the knees collapsing and you've practised collapsing knees thirty times. The app records five sets of five and congratulates you for reinforcing that.
The second gap is the day itself. A programme written in advance doesn't know you slept five hours, that your back is grumbling, or that you've had a brutal week. A coach looks at you in the warm-up and changes the number before you've asked. The written plan says 80%; what you needed today was 60% and a change of movement. Over a year, that adjustment is the difference between accumulating fitness and accumulating injuries.
And the third is accountability. An app is available whenever you like, which stops being useful somewhere around February.
To be fair to the apps, there are things they do well. They track everything without you having to remember it. They'll tell you your squat has gone up 15kg since March, which is motivating and which a coach relying on memory won't. And they cost £12 a month. If what's missing from your training is a plan, an app fixes that completely. This is the reason we use WodBoard to give that data for our athletes.
So if you're training off an app and it's going well, keep going — the programme probably isn't your problem. But do one thing: get your squat and your deadlift looked at by someone who coaches for a living. Film both from side-on at hip height, one set at a working weight, and either send it to a coach or book an hour. One session of correction will change more about the next twelve months than switching programmes ever will.
People don't fail because their programme was wrong. They fail because nobody was watching, and nothing but a notification keeps them accountable.
I've done it myself when working on skills or my oly lifting. I've tried using apps, WODPrep, RxGymnastics, weightlifting programming. Nothing sticks, nothing beats a coach.
Fifteen minutes with Jeremy or Beth at crossfitchiltern.com — free, no obligation, and no hard sell.
